Criminal Minds: the Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence
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St. John Fisher College Fisher Digital Publications Sport Management Undergraduate Sport Management Department Spring 4-26-2015 Criminal Minds: The Relationship between Sport and Off Field Violence Danielle M. Falck St. John Fisher College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/sport_undergrad Part of the Sports Management Commons How has open access to Fisher Digital Publications benefited ou?y Recommended Citation Falck, Danielle M., "Criminal Minds: The Relationship between Sport and Off Field Violence" (2015). Sport Management Undergraduate. Paper 103. Please note that the Recommended Citation provides general citation information and may not be appropriate for your discipline. To receive help in creating a citation based on your discipline, please visit http://libguides.sjfc.edu/citations. This document is posted at https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/sport_undergrad/103 and is brought to you for free and open access by Fisher Digital Publications at St. John Fisher College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Criminal Minds: The Relationship between Sport and Off Field Violence Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between type of sports team and player convicted of a crime involving bodily harm off the playing field in the National Basketball League (NBA) and National Football League (NFL). This research was beneficial ot the academic community because it further developed which professional sport participants were more engaged in violent acts out of the boundaries of their respective sports. This study allowed future researchers the opportunity to build off this study in hopes of building off of what is already known. This study was conducted with a cross sectional design because secondary data was collected at one time. The data collected from the sample did not show a positive relationship between type of sport and player being convicted of a crime involving bodily harm. Instead, the data collected showed that the most frequent arrest among the sampled group was drug and alcohol related. Document Type Undergraduate Project Professor's Name Dr. Katharine Burakowski Subject Categories Sports Management This undergraduate project is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/sport_undergrad/103 1 Running head: Criminal Minds: The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence Criminal Minds: The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence Falck, M. Danielle Saint John Fisher College 2 The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between type of sports team and player convicted of a crime involving bodily harm off the playing field in the National Basketball League (NBA) and National Football League (NFL). This research was beneficial to the academic community because it further developed which professional sport participants were more engaged in violent acts out of the boundaries of their respective sports. This study allowed future researchers the opportunity to build off this study in hopes of building off of what is already known. This study was conducted with a cross sectional design because secondary data was collected at one time. The data collected from the sample did not show a positive relationship between type of sport and player being convicted of a crime involving bodily harm. Instead, the data collected showed that the most frequent arrest among the sampled group was drug and alcohol related. Introduction Recently, professional athletes have repeatedly been in the public’s eye through media and social networks for being accused of violence off the field of play on a regular basis. Domestic violence seemed to be the most frequently reported form of arrest of professional athletes and included but wasn’t limited to Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald, Dez Bryant, AJ Jefferson, Jeff Taylor, and Hope Solo. Therefore, as a society we may believe professional athletes as a whole behaved in this manor more often than non-athletes. Research findings have failed to illustrate that athletes were more violent than non-athletes or if sports in general made athletes more aggressive or violent than those who have not participated in sport. This research was beneficial to the academic community because it further developed which professional sport participants were more engaged in violent acts out of the boundaries of their 3 The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence respective sports. The findings analyzed from this study; Exploration of sport violence on and off the field by professional athletes allowed future researchers the opportunity to build off of former studies in hopes of building on what the world already knows. The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between type of sports team and player convicted of a crime involving bodily harm off the playing field at the professional level. The research question of this study was: What relationship exists between type of sports team and player convicted of a crime involving bodily harm? The aim of this research was to present a deeper understanding of the relationship between professional sport participant and violence off field. This research allowed arrests and convictions of athletes to be analyzed. Literature Review Participants On-Field Sport Violence A common link between researches done thus far in regards to on field sport violence is that violence, aggression, and accidents differ in many ways depending on the sport being studied and the factors that influenced these variables during sport participation. Guilbert (2008) conducted a study that focused on nine sporting practices, which were; basketball, karate, table tennis, swimming, shooting, soccer, volleyball, judo, and tennis. These sports were then split into combinatorial groups based on violence and accidents, the researcher chose to use combat sports, team sports, racket sports, and individual sports (with or without weapons) when he compared 420 competitors through surveys, questionnaires, and interviews. Findings from this study showed that violence and accidents varied depending on the sport being practiced. Findings 4 The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence showed that in combat (judo and karate) and team (basketball, soccer, and volleyball) sports, violence was high and mainly physical which caused accidents on the field of play to be more serious (Guilbert, 2008). During combat sports the participants knew what to expect and how to react because the rules included and aimed to inflict violence or bodily harm on the opponent (Guilbert, 2008). Basketball and soccer don’t necessarily expect a tackle, hit, or nudge since the aim of these sports were to win the ball and not inflict harm on an opponent (Guilbert, 2008). In comparison to basketball and soccer (the other team sports), violence in volleyball was found to be more verbal and mental than physical through insults and abuse (Guilbert, 2008). Tennis, table tennis, and swimming were deemed less violent and accidents were also less frequent and less serious as a result. Qualitative data retrieved by Guilbert (2008) revealed that these participants described violence as mental and verbal using foul language towards their opponent and/ or smashing their racket out of frustration. Lastly, shooting as sport resulted in violent accident not being likely to occur but when they did occur, they were serious (Guilbert, 2008). Guilbert’s (2008) study facilitated the extent violence and accidents occurred in these nine sports used, helped promote civil behavior among these sports, and helped guide sportsmen’s choice of practice based on their moral qualities in regards to violence and accidents. In 2009, Kerr conducted a study that characterized violent incidents on field in Dutch Football and the motivation behind them through a proposed psychological theory. This psychological theory was known as the reversal theory approach, which included four pairs of mental or metamotivational states (Kerr, 2009). The researcher described metamotivational states as states of mind concerned with how a person interpreted their own motives at a given point in time. The four metamotivational pairs included, “telic-paratelic (serious-playful), negativistic- 5 The Relationship Between Sport and Off Field Violence conformist (rebellious-compliant), mastery-sympathy (competitive-cooperative), and autic-alloic (egotistic-altruistic)” (Kerr, 2009, p. 44). For each metamotivational state combination there was a felt transactional outcome, which emerged during interactions between individuals and others (Kerr, 2009). The researcher stated that somatic and transactional emotions made up the felt transactional outcome and included relaxation, excitement, placidity, provocativeness, anxiety, boredom, anger, sullenness, pride, modesty, gratitude, virtue, humiliation, shame, resentment, and guilt (Kerr, 2009). Two incidents were examined in this study; Incident one play was stopped, the player was asked to leave the field but came back to kick the opponent in the head and incident two, the action took place during play and was deemed normal rules of Dutch Football, not including if he really meant to injure the opponent or not. According to Kerr (2009), two factors needed consideration in cases involving on field violence, which included intent to injure and consent. It’s understood that those who participate in contact sports